Donnie Iris, regarded as Pittsburgh’s biggest hometown rock hero for a six-decade career that included hit singles in the 1960s and ’80s, died Monday at 83. He had been fighting bladder cancer for three years.
Iris’ biggest chart success came as a member of the Jaggerz, who reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1970 with “The Rapper” — a song that dealt with “rapping” with girls, not the genre whose name had not yet been coined.
That group petered out, but he went on to have continued success, especially regionally, as the frontman of Donnie Iris and the Cruisers in the age of power pop and Midwest rock. A decade after “The Rapper” broke through, Iris had a hit again with “Ah! Leah!,” which reached No. 29 on the Hot 100 in 1980. They had two more mid-level chart hits in 1981 with “Love Is Like a Rock” and “My Girl.”
His modest success during that era on the Billboard charts was hardly indicative of just how beloved he was in his native Pennsylvania and the Midwest region, widely seen as being to Pittsburgh what Michael Stanley was to Cleveland.
“For my money, he was the most beloved Pittsburgh musician of all time,” Joe Grushecky told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Grushecky, as the leader of the Iron City Houserockers, would have been one of the few other viable candidates for that title. But, as he told the newspaper, “I don’t know anyone who was loved more than Donnie. He just had that warmth about him, and it came through in his performance.”
Iris was a trouper to the end, performing his final show less than a month ago, on Sept. 28, at Citizens Live at the Wylie, seated in a chair shortly after having radiation treatment in the afternoon.
“He sang like a bird that night,” his longtime keyboard player and best friend, Mark Avsec, told the Post-Gazette. “It was the first time on a chair, and he didn’t like that. But the poor guy, the cancer was spreading, and he was in pain, and he really wanted to do that show and be with the people.”
Iris began singing in a doo-wop group in high school in the early ’60s, then moved on to rock ‘n’ roll and R&B cover bands before the Jaggerz were formed in 1964. They were eventually signed to Gamble Records, the brainchild of Philly soul greats Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, and released their first album, “Introducing the Jaggerz,” in 1969.
In the late ’70s, he became a guitarist for Wild Cherry, after that group had already hit the big time with “Play That Funky Music.” It was in the Wild Cherry days that he met Avsec, who continued on with him in Donnie Iris and the Cruisers and continued to perform with him all the way to last month.
They recruited Marty Lee Hoenes, Albritton McClain and Kevin Valentine to complete Donnie and the Cruisers and released their first album, “Back on the Streets,” in 1980, followed by “King Cool” the following year, “The High and the Mighty” in 1982 and “Fortune 410” in 1983 before being dropped by MCA Records in 1984. Even set adrift from major labels, they continued to record into the 2010s.
Iris was championed in 2025 in a well-read blog post by industry pundit Bob Lefsetz, who wrote, “I didn’t buy the solo debut, ‘Back on the Streets,’ but I did buy the follow-up, ‘King Cool.’ The joke, of course, was that Donnie Iris was anything but cool. He was a man whose music was au courant, but whose look was passé, maybe because by time he made it he was in his late thirties, whereas his contemporaries had all made it in their twenties…”
Lefsetz continued, “Donnie specializes in straight-ahead rock, and all his records are very listenable. So I did, listen that is. I know ‘Stagedoor Johnny’ and ‘Never Did I’ by heart, not that you can hear them on streaming services, MCA has only deigned to release the greatest hits. And then Donnie Iris lost his deal with MCA and disappeared. ‘Ah! Leah!’ survived, some people remember seeing him on MTV, but there was no press, no airplay, it’s like he didn’t exist.”
Then, as Lefsetz noted, “Turns out he became a mortgage broker… Sure, Donnie continued to play music, but he needed to pay the rent, put food on the table. You’d be stunned so many of your heroes end up working straight jobs.”
Indeed, per the Post-Gazette, Iris went on to own SimCorp in Aliquippa. He admitted he got some business from customers who wanted to deal with the rock star they’d identified with or grown up with, or whose annual birthday shows they were still going to see. “It got me some business I normally wouldn’t have,” he acknowledged.
Lefsetz was compelled to write about iris by seeing a video of him performing “Love Is Like a Rock” and, like many fans, being impressed he still had his chops, “sans plastic surgery, sans much hair. It’s still him, the essence… What is truly stunning is when he starts picking that Fender. Like it’s a high school in New Castle, Pennsylvania and it’s another night in the sixties. And he’s not only picking, HE’S INTO IT!… Donnie isn’t showing off, he’s just doing what he does, AT 82! It put a smile on my face, made me feel good not only about Donnie Iris, but rock and roll.”
In one of dozens of responses to Lefsetz’s column, his partner Avsec wrote, “We’ve been together for almost 50 years… And one of the joys of my life is watching the crowd watch Donnie. I’ve never seen such JOY on people’s faces. It happens every time we play, and we’re fortunate enough to be playing decent size venues, especially in Western Pa and Northeastern Ohio. Donnie is going through his third course of chemotherapy. If the treatments drag him down, he does not show it. He still sings his butt off. Screams and everything. I don’t think he has ever had so much fun on stage. Donnie always tells me he’s having the time of his life. Same goes for me.”
In another response, former A&M promo executive Richard Pachter wrote, “‘Ah! Leah!’ may be the most rock and roll video ever made. That rug! Those teeth! That skinny guy with the hairy chest! But despite all that, it’s beyond great. It’s the personification of it all. I’m not kidding! THAT is rock and roll!”